iVillage.com: Biggest Celebrity Comebacks

Britney Spears

There was a time in 2008 when few thought Britney Spears would ever return to her "Oops!... I Did It Again" fame. She had just had her second divorce, lost physical custody of her children, been admitted to rehab several times in one year and performed terribly at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards. But during the past four years, something miraculous has happened. Spears (pictured on June 16 in Oakland, Calif.) reinvented her image with hit albums like Circus and Femme Fatale, became a good mom, and is now happily engaged with a job as a judge on "The X Factor." "The bitch is back and better than ever," Spears, 30, promised in a March 2011 V magazine interview. We would have to agree.

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Charlie Sheen (pictured on March 29 in NYC) has struggled with substance abuse issues throughout his career, but things truly came to a head when he was admitted to rehab multiple times in 2010 and Warner Bros. subsequently fired him from his eight-season-long stint on CBS' hit sitcom "Two and a Half Men." That's when Sheen had a full-blown meltdown -- dating "goddesses," going on a widely-panned concert tour , publicly feuding with "Men" creator Chuck Lorre, and declaring that he was "winning," had "Adonis DNA" and was a "Vatican warlock assassin." But just when we were about to write Sheen off, he poked fun at himself at his Comedy Central roast back in September, landed a deal to star in the FX sitcom "Anger Management" and stopped shooting off his mouth in public. In advance of the June 28 premiere of "Anger Management," Sheen has embarked on a mea-culpa media blitz, apologzing for his "cringeable" behavior and admitting to Rolling Stone that he was "in total denial." If his new show catches on, Sheen will have made a miraculous comeback -- in record time!

What happened to the cute girl who starred in "The Parent Trap" back in 1998? That's what we've repeatedly asked ourselves as we've watched Lindsay Lohan disintegrate over the past decade. The former child star (pictured May 10 in NYC) has experienced pretty much every celebrity setback there is -- drug and alcohol addiction, lawsuits, jail time and a failing movie and music career... all by age 25. But following a well-received guest stint on "Glee," she's seemingly on an upswing thanks to upcoming high-profile roles in the Lifetime movie "Liz and Dick" and the edgy indie "The Canyons." "I regret the choices that I've made, but I'm grateful for where I am today because of them," she said recently. Now all LiLo has to do is stay off the road and keep hydrating!

There was a time in 2008 when few thought Britney Spears would ever return to her "Oops!... I Did It Again" fame. She had just had her second divorce, lost physical custody of her children, been admitted to rehab several times in one year and performed terribly at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards. But during the past four years, something miraculous has happened. Spears (pictured on June 16 in Oakland, Calif.) reinvented her image with hit albums like Circus and Femme Fatale, became a good mom, and is now happily engaged with a job as a judge on "The X Factor." "The bitch is back and better than ever," Spears, 30, promised in a March 2011 V magazine interview. We would have to agree.

It's easy to forget that before he was "Iron Man," Robert Downey Jr. was considered as big a mess (if less in-your-face about it) as Charlie Sheen was in 2010-11. For five years beginning in 1996, the Downey (pictured on April 28 in NYC) was frequently arrested for drug-related charges, spent a year in prison and lost many acting gigs because of his addiction. Most famously, he was fired from his recurring role on TV's "Ally McBeal" after being arrested in November 2000 and again in April 2001. But in 2003, Downey achieved lasting sobriety and slowly built his career -- and his personal life -- back. RDJ married producer Susan Levin in 2005 and that same year won over audiences with his turn in "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang." He solidified his status as one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood with the summer 2008 one-two punch of "Iron Man" and "Tropic Thunder" (for which he earned an Oscar nomination). With the highly lucrative "Sherlock Holmes" franchise following in 2009, it's no wonder that Downey declared in 2010: "This is just the sweet spot of my career and my life so far." We have to imagine it's probably a little sweeter now that he and his wife welcomed a son, Exton, in February -- and "The Avengers" has raked in $600 million domestically to become the No. 3-grossing film of all time.

Who can forget Rob Lowe's notorious 1988 sex-tape scandal? Well, most of us now that he's built his career back up from the ashes. The actor (pictured on April 25 in NYC) was a beloved playboy back in the '80s -- known for turns in Brat Pack films like "The Outsiders," "Less Than Zero" and "St. Elmo's Fire." But following that '88 set tape -- which featured Lowe having sex with two women, one of whom was only 16 -- the heartthrob found his public image tarnished and had a tough go of it in the early '90s. He turned to television instead of film to rebuild his name, and did so successfully thanks to "The West Wing," "Brothers and Sisters" and, most recently, "Parks and Recreation." Still, Lowe is proud of his Brat Pack roots. "We should all be so lucky in our lives to create things that we're still talking about 25 years later," the actor, who documented his wild younger years in the memoir "Stories I Only Tell My Friends," told Vanity Fair in March 2011.

It was certainly surprising when good-looking "Diner" and "Body Heat" star Mickey Rourke decided in 1991 that he was "self-destructing" as an actor and took up a career as a professional boxer instead. After going undefeated with eight wins (and suffering a number of injuries that would leave his face changed), Rourke (pictured in November 2011 in L.A.) decided to return to Hollywood just three years later. But the time out of the spotlight, coupled with his reputation for being difficult to work, seriously slowed the quirky actor's return to stardom. "Change didn't come easy for me -- until I lost everything, and then I realized, 'You better change, or you're gonna blow your f***ing brains out,'" he told Film Journal in 2008. Things started to turn around for Rourke when he landed a major part in 2005's "Sin City," but his comeback wasn't complete until he channeled all those years of struggle into his Oscar-nominated turn in 2008's "The Wrestler." He's worked steadily since, notably playing the villain to fellow comebacker Robert Downey Jr.'s hero in 2010's "Iron Man 2."

When Eddie Murphy first broke onto the Hollywood scene in the '80s, he was one of the most scathing, groundbreaking comics around. But following his stint on "Saturday Night Live" and his successful '80s films "48 Hrs.," "Coming To America" and" Beverly Hills Cop," he began to lose his mojo with a string of unfunny sequels and box-office misfires (hello, "Vampire in Brooklyn!"). Murphy (pictured in November 2011 in Burbank, Calif.) reinvented himself in 1996 starting with "The Nutty Professor" and went on to achieve box-office success with family-friendly fare like 1998's "Dr. Doolittle" and its sequel, as well as 2001's beloved Shrek. But with the exception of the "Shrek" sequels and 2006's "Dreamgirls" (for which he received an Oscar nod), Murphy's recent films have either underperformed (like 2011's "Tower Heist") or outright bombed (see "Meet Dave", "Imagine That" and "A Thousand Words"). Maybe another comeback is due?